Letter To My 13-Year-Old Self

RE: Pearl Jam

You figure you’re going to be a lawyer, huh? People have
been telling you that since you were, oh, 8 or so. You probably wouldn’t
believe me if I told you Pearl Jam was going to change that.

Yeah, I know, you’re
lukewarm on the band. Yes, you bought Ten, but not until you owned the
entire Nirvana catalog, Superunknown, Siamese Dream, Dookie, Smash, The
Chronic, The Predator and AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted.

But your buddy Tim is
a Ten Club member who owns import singles boasting at least three
versions of “Yellow Ledbetter” and bootlegs from before Pearl Jam starts
making official recordings of literally every show it plays. In the
summer of 1998, you and Tim will make road trips to see the band in
Toronto, Cincinnati, Columbus and Pittsburgh. It will be amazing. The
fact that two 17-year-olds drove a Ford Taurus across an international
border to see a rock show will seem really weird just a few years later.

In October 2000, the
band will be on tour again and you will be broke because you have never
had a job. Your friend Chip will tell you it’s possible to secure
complimentary admittance to a wide variety of concerts and sporting
events by agreeing to write about them for the University of Akron’s
student newspaper. This will be your first job, and it will get you and
Tim into Pearl Jam’s Detroit show for free. Emboldened, you will do this
again and again. Your parents will think it’s just a harmless hobby
until it’s too late. You will see so many free concerts that you’ll
eventually discover you like writing about the concerts even more than
you like seeing them for free. You will actually graduate from law
school but you will never take the bar exam because you want to write
for a living. And you will.

In 2011, you’ll have
followed this path to a newspaper in Portland, Ore. And it’s there your
buddy Tim will fly to visit you and see the band in Seattle. I’m certain
you’ll be very happy with how this all works out—even if, as your
mother has been known to mention, lawyers can buy their own Pearl Jam
tickets.